The Purpose of Mainstream Political Journalism is Emotional Manipulation and the Prevention of Understanding

Nothing matters more than the destruction of the information environment — the relentless pollution of knowledge and understanding that currently passes for political journalism.

Longtime political journalist Matt Bai, writing in the Washington Post:

I beg you to read this piece from Matt Bai. Here’s the link again, a cached version that gets you around the Washington Post’s paywall. As you read, ask yourself how Bai illustrates each claim that he makes. What evidence does he provide for the things he tells you? Go read, and decide for yourself, then come back.

So.

Ohio’s junior senator, you might have seen, turned up at the criminal courthouse in Manhattan this week, with his ultra-trendy woodsman’s beard and blood-red tie, to viciously attack the prosecutors and witnesses in the trial of Donald Trump.

Bai is telling you about a vicious attack, something horrible and frightening. How much of the vicious attack does he tell you about? What portion of it does he quote? Really notice and internalize what this sleazy reptilian motherfucker just did: He doesn’t provide the slightest description of anything Vance actually said. There’s no direct quote — zero, not a single word. He hangs amygdala-hammering trigger words around an event, but he doesn’t describe the event in any way. He tells you to be afraid of something without telling what it was.

If you go actually look at what Vance has been saying about the trial, you’ll find him saying things like this, from a long press release that lays out his views in great detail:

That brings us to the so-called “star witness” for the prosecution: convicted felon and admitted liar Michael Cohen. The district attorney has pinned the foundation of the indictment against President Trump on Cohen’s testimony. But this is a man who has repeatedly tied himself in knots lying to Congress, federal investigators, and anyone who has tried to do business with him. The prosecution could not have found a less credible witness if they tried.

All of that is mere description. Cohen is, in fact, the star witness, and he is, in fact, a convicted felon and admitted liar. The substance of Vance’s vicious attack is that he’s describing things that everyone can see with their eyes. And so on:

Since this sham trial began in April, President Trump has spent more than a dozen days tied up in a New York City courthouse. This is precious time he could be using to make campaign stops in crucial swing states. It demonstrates how Alvin Bragg’s case has always been more about hurting President Trump’s campaign than enforcing the law.

Is the trial keeping the Republican presidential frontrunner off the campaign trail? Yes or no?

So Bai characterizes something while hiding the thing he’s characterizing. Vance made a vicious attack [no quote or example]. This is Propaganda 101, dirtying something up while taking great care to avoid any actual details.

Keep going! Vance is known for his fashionable book, which Bai sneers at — “which I will admit to having skimmed at the time, like about 90 percent of the people who bought it.” In fairness, Bai does seem like someone who only ever skims books, so let’s take his word for it. But read for yourself and answer this question: How well does Bai summarize the book, helping you to understand what Vance said? Bai uses the device of telling you what the left and the right took the book to mean, but again, go look for the quote from the book. Go look for the description of the thing allegedly being described, beyond the shallow left/right framing language.

Finally, Bai characterizes Vance’s political agenda: He’s one of the “amoral operators,” an example of “cowards and hucksters.” He’s destroying Our Democracy™:

And Vance represents the new breed of Republican charlatan — willing to see the democracy riven and its institutions reduced to rubble if it means he can be TikTok-famous for a while and ride around in armored limousines.

Aside from the usual tediousness — someone is campaigning for a Republican, so he wants to see “the democracy riven,” because true democracy doesn’t have an opposition party in it — you have to notice, yet again, that Bai doesn’t describe the thing he’s characterizing. Meanwhile, here’s an example of the kinds of things Vance actually does in D.C.:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senators JD Vance (R-OH) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) introduced an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act of 2024 to provide $6 billion of new funding to the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), complete the equipment removal of China-based companies Huawei and ZTE through $3 billion of funding for the “rip and replace” program, and allow the FCC to reauction certain spectrum licenses. The amendment, which is also sponsored by Senators Peter Welch (D-VT), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Steve Daines (R-MT), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Kevin Cramer (R-ND), represents a consensus pathway to renewing funding for the ACP.

Ohhh, he’s absolutely reducing our institutions to rubble!

Journalist-cosplayers like Matt Bai exist to pollute your brain with sewage. He’s published a column in which he tells you about three things, and he doesn’t actually tell you anything about any of them. It’s 800 words of distraction operation, mind-polluting shit from a morally and intellectually empty scumbag.

The correct response to reading the newspaper is to go take a shower. We can’t fix anything without fixing the information problem.